The NCSeT Research Team at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) is comprised of the following individuals:
- Dr. Judith Zorfass, Principal Investigator and Site Research Coordinator
- Karen Clay, Research Associate
- Alise Brann, Research Associate
Dr. Judith Zorfass is Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Associate Center Director in EDC's Center for Family, School, and Community. Her background brings together the following areas: literacy development K-12, with an emphasis on adolescent development; technology integration, with an emphasis on literacy and students with disabilities; professional development; and middle school reform. In her 21-year tenure at EDC, Dr. Zorfass has been technical monitor, principal investigator, and/or project director for close to 25 different projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education, NSF, foundations and software publishers. Her projects have been wide-ranging, focusing on classroom-based research, product development (software, curriculum), professional development and technical assistance (face-to-face and online), and dissemination projects (especially including the development of cutting-edge websites). She has been the principal investigator for national centers, such as the National Center to Improve Practice and the Center for Linking Schools with Information and Support on Special Education and Technology. She holds a doctorate in reading and language development from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. She is the author of "Helping Middle School Students Become Active Researchers" published by ASCD in 1998, the author of numerous articles, and a frequent presenter at national conferences.
Karen Clay has close to twenty years of experience in education, multi-media, and technology. Currently, Ms. Clay is the project director of an NSF project evaluating the effectiveness of SOLO and the use of electronic text to enhance the reading comprehension of students who are struggling with reading and writing. Additional supports such as highlighting, teacher created reading guides, and moveable text are also supports being examined. As part of an earlier OSEP project, Navigating Knowledge, Ms. Clay conducted research in two Greater Boston middle schools on the use of a software tool, DraftBuilder™ that incorporated electronic text including highlighting, easy revising of text to support the development of deeper understanding, and the various processes leading from conceptualizing a piece of research to producing a first draft of the work. Ms. Clay is also involved in a number of projects looking at how cognitive tools can support literacy and increase students’ deeper understanding across the content areas. Ms. Clay has also done research in high school reform and instructional technology. She has published several articles on science literacy in the high school science classroom.
Alise Brann is a Research Associate at Education Development Center (EDC) in the Center for Family, School and Community (FSC). Her work focuses on examining how technology can facilitate access to academic content for students with learning disabilities and supporting teachers and administrators as they integrate instructional technology into the classroom. As part of the Center for Implementing Technology in Education (CITEd), Ms. Brann has developed a variety of resources for the web, including several educator articles on topics in educational technology and reviewing alternative input devices for CITEd’s Tech Matrix, a searchable database of technology tools. Ms. Brann conducted research on the Visual Thesaurus in a suburban Boston middle school as part of the National Center for Supported e-Text in Electronic Environments (NCSeT), training teachers and student on use of the tool, creating curriculum materials and observing student interaction with the technology. Ms. Brann is currently working as part of a team to develop a professional development module on mathematics and language for the Comprehensive School Reform project.
Previous work at EDC includes designing professional development materials for principals, and helping to create an accessible multimedia informed consent tool for an NIH-funded study on children's health. Prior to her work at EDC, Ms. Brann consulted with schools serving children and young adults with learning disabilities and emotional/behavioral disorders to help staff integrate technology tools into their teaching practice. Ms. Brann received her Ed.S. in Assistive Technology, her M.S. Ed in Moderate Disabilities from Simmons College, and her B.A. in Psychology from Smith College.